The MiG crash

THE TRAGIC DEATH of Flt. Lt. Shreya Shukla, Commander of the MiG- 21 fighter plane which crashed at Palam airport on August 5 soon after a bird-hit raises a pair of very disturbing questions. They hinge upon matters relating to flight safety of the combat aircraft earlier acquired from Russia and subsequently taken up for manufacture in India on the one hand and the persisting bird menace in the country's airports on the other.

The aircraft which was felled after a bird ingestion happens to be a MiG 21. It could have been a Jaguar or a Mirage of the Indian Air Force or a passenger aircraft of the civilian airlines. Nevertheless, the fact that this is the seventh crash of a MiG aircraft since April this year makes it quite alarming and it calls for a closer examination. The fact that as many as 55 out of the 59 fighter planes which the IAF had lost during the last year are all MiGs is quite dismaying. It is much too large a number to be attributed to just the normal hazards which pilots of fighter aircraft have to reckon with. India's decision to sign an agreement with the erstwhile Soviet Union was taken in 1962, soon after the traumatic Chinese attack, for an initial purchase of MiGs which were later taken up for indigenous manufacture of the aircraft frames and engines by the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. at its Nasik and Sonabeda divisions in Maharashtra and Orissa. This turned out to be a prestigious project for the HAL and the MiG could even claim to be the flagship of the IAF. However, its crash record in recent years throws up questions on whether the ageing of the fleet and its technology, which may be fast becoming vintage, have been eroding in-built safety. With the HAL divisions no longer making the MiGs because of the non-flow of fresh orders from the IAF depending entirely upon the planes built to a technology which has stayed put during the last three decades, they could have become dinosaurs. Since this could be true of the other planes of the IAF as well, the questions which should be considered seriously are those hinging on the fragility to which ageing combat aircraft become prone. No less important are matters relating to the safety of the pilots who are keeping the IAF in a state of combat readiness.

This is not the first time that birds - mostly vultures - have brought down aircraft either after take-off or before touch down when they were ingested into the engines. The record of airports in India in meeting the rigid requirements of environmental cleanliness has remained deplorable. Detailed studies carried out earlier had clearly drawn attention to why birds hover over air space to wreck planes soon after they are air-borne or when they are making a descent with the deadly encounters taking place within an altitude of perhaps less than a hundred metres. These birds are usually on the prowl looking for decaying meat strewn on the ground and coming down in a swoop to pick it up. This should not have posed a threat to planes had the required attention been given to the regulations in force governing health and environmental hygiene. Trucks which transport meat from slaughter houses to marketing centres are required to have them adequately covered to ensure that they are not spilt on the roads. It is very well known that the rules which are in force to ensure this are breached with impunity by truck operators to foul the roads with pieces of meat. Such spillage on the city roads provokes a bird presence which endangers planes coming in to land or taking off from airports as the record of bird ingestions during the last two decades has clearly demonstrated. Unless the law-enforcing authorities take drastic action to ensure that road transportation of raw meat conforms to the rules relating to hygiene and safety, bird-hits would continue to menace planes.

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